I hope every visitor to These Stone Walls has read and shared with others, “The Trials of Father MacRae,” an account of egregious injustice penned last May by Pulitzer Prize-winning Wall Street Journal columnist, Dorothy Rabinowitz. Ms. Rabinowitz was also interviewed in a compelling video on this case which I urge readers not to miss. One phrase in her WSJ article provides a conscience-stirring summation:

“Those aware of the facts of this case find it hard to imagine that any court today would ignore the perversion of justice it represents.’

Three months after the above article was published, a superior court judge in New Hampshire dismissed this appeal without hearing any testimony on its merits or evidence. More recently, an expensive but necessary appeal to the New Hampshire Supreme Court met, in late September, with yet another refusal by state courts to hear this case.

I am one of those aware of the facts of this case, one who, as Dorothy Rabinowitz put forth, finds it hard to imagine that any court today would ignore the perversion of justice it represents. And “perversion of justice” is the most apt description of the 1994 trial that convicted Gordon MacRae and sent him to prison. So I have asked for some space on These Stone Walls this week to update readers on the status of an appeal effort on behalf of this wrongfully imprisoned priest.

This is also an appeal of my own, an appeal to readers to assist with a fund raising effort to continue this hope for justice. Any gift, large or small, will greatly aid this just cause to bring hope and justice to an innocent man, a man who has just begun his 20th year of wrongful imprisonment. I have written below a description of why I am convinced this case is a just and worthy cause, and then I want to describe how you can help.

A VIEW OF THE “CRIME” SCENE YOU HAVEN’T SEEN

Like so many who have looked at this case, I was aghast when I first became familiar with the details of the trial of Father MacRae. I wrote of this trial in an article entitled “Judge Arthur Brennan Sentenced Fr Gordon MacRae to Die in Prison.” Once I became aware of this trial, I also wanted to see for myself exactly where this was all claimed to have taken place. What I saw was a compelling visual to accompany something Attorney Robert Rosenthal included in his appellate brief to the NH Supreme Court:

“In what the petitioner asserts has been revealed as a scam to obtain a cash settlement from the Catholic church, Tom Grover, a drug addict, alcoholic and criminal, accused Father Gordon MacRae of molesting him years before. Grover’s civil suit – featuring MacRae’s conviction -earned him nearly $200,000. No witnesses to the alleged acts could be found, despite that they were to have occurred in busy places. Grover’s claims were contradicted by objective facts (e.g. inoperable locks that he claimed worked, acts in an office to which MacRae did not have access, claims about a chess set that had not [yet] been purchased).”

Just how busy was the place in which Thomas Grover claimed to have been repeatedly assaulted at age 15 by Father MacRae in the summer of 1983? To answer this question for myself, I became quite familiar with the scene above during a short trip this past summer to Keene, New Hampshire and its much-touted downtown Main Street.

A small city with a population of about 23,500 (not counting the 5,000+ students enrolled in Keene State College) Keene is the social and economic hub of southwestern New Hampshire. It boasts the widest Main Street in the United States, and its vibrant downtown area – the envy of many cities its size – is a bustling collection of quaint and busy shops, restaurants, a theatre, offices, and a concert area on the Keene Commons.

This bustling downtown area begins at the doors of Saint Bernard Church and Rectory, the scene depicted above. The building in the background is Saint Joseph Regional Catholic School (grades K to 8). The entire complex is bordered on the left by the 5,000 student campus of Keene State College, and on the right by busy downtown Keene. Just across the wide, heavily traveled Main Street from the rectory door is the region’s largest and busiest U.S. Post Office, a pizza restaurant heavily patronized by KSC students, and a convenience store conducting a brisk college town business 24/7.

In the scene just above, note the flat-roofed adjunct just to the left of the rectory building. It was added on at some point to the large old house that became St. Bernard Rectory. The few stairs and rounded door on the building’s left side was in 1983 the rectory’s main business entrance.

Around 1980 or so, a closed circuit television camera was installed just above that door because the rectory had been the scene of a number of urban burglaries and an armed robbery or two. In the late 1970s, two priests and the pastor’s elderly mother were tied up at gunpoint in the rectory basement while the house was robbed. Just inside that door in the 1980s was the desk of a receptionist and secretary staffed in two shifts from 9:00 AM until 9:00 PM. Also just inside the door was a waiting area for parishioners wanting to see one of the four priests assigned there in early 1980s, and for daily clients of the region’s busy St. Vincent DePaul Society seeking assistance with food, clothing, and emergency shelter. This doorway was the busiest place in or around Saint Bernard Parish in the 1980s. The photo above was taken very early in the morning. At virtually any other time, it is a hubbub of activity.

Just to the left of that door is a large window. It was just behind this highly visible office window – in full view of the daily hustle and bustle of Main Street traffic and a steady stream of visitors into and out of St. Bernard Church and Rectory – that 27-year-old Thomas Grover claimed at trial in 1994 that he was four times overpowered and sexually assaulted by Father Gordon MacRae in the summer of 1983.

It was here behind this window where Grover claimed that in the months just prior to his 16th birthday he sought MacRae out for counseling for his drug addiction, but instead was threatened, berated, made to cry, and then raped. It was here behind this window that 220-pound Thomas Grover claimed to have returned four times from week to week unable to remember the sexual assaults alleged to have occurred in previous weeks. It was behind this window that he claimed to have the PTSD induced “out-of-body experiences” that caused him not to remember.

Thomas Grover claimed that these assaults occurred in this office commencing in April 1983 and ending just as he turned 16 years old in mid-November 1983. It has been determined that Father MacRae did not arrive at St. Bernard Church until mid-June 1983, and did not have access to this particular office, or any office on the first floor, because they were occupied by other priests until the end of July 1983. Grover then vaguely claimed other assaults in other nearby places, moving at least one claim to an adjacent busy office to which MacRae also had no access that summer.

The prosecution produced not a single witness to these acts. No one ever saw Thomas Grover there. No one ever opened the door to admit him, or saw him leave. No one ever claimed to have heard anything. An ornate marble chess set that Grover claimed was inside that office during the 1983 assaults was not purchased by the priest until three years later in 1986. According to Thomas Grover’s ex-wife, Thomas Grover perjured himself about the chess set claiming that it was what he was told to say. A lock Grover claimed that MacRae used to secure the office door had been dismantled and painted over years before the priest arrived.

The one person who could have helped in this appellate defense – a prominent priest of the Diocese of Manchester – refused to help. The above scene was his office for several years before MacRae arrived, and for several years after MacRae left St. Bernard’s. That priest could have spoken to the improbability of all that had been claimed. He could have described the locks that didn’t work, the shade on the office window that wasn’t there in 1983, the absence of air conditioning requiring that this office window remain wide open to the front door main entrance throughout summer months.

That priest could have attested to the traffic; to the noise of people coming and going, noise that easily penetrated that office door in both directions. He could have attested to the waiting area just outside that office door, and its steady stream of people. But he refused. In his answer to Father MacRae’s plea as the investigation for this appeal began, that priest wrote, “I can’t be of any help to you, and don’t see the necessity to entertain any further correspondence from you.”

And this as the Bishop of Manchester, who promised assistance and then reneged, informed Vatican officials and others that he and the Diocese of Manchester fully support Father MacRae’s right of defense.

We of good conscience and justice in our hearts cannot allow this to stand. Let’s make this an effort of the Church Pope Francis speaks of, the Church of the people addressing an egregious injustice with the small gifts of the many instead of the efforts of a few. Please help.

HOW TO HELP

As listed on the “Contact” page of These Stone Walls there are four ways you can be of help, and I urge you to spread word of this information by sharing this post with your social media and online contacts. Here’s how to help:

LEGAL DEFENSE FUND: A legal fund has been established to accept gifts applied directly to legal costs that are ongoing in this case. As we now begin the process of preparing appeals to the federal courts, available funds have been seriously depleted, and continuance of this effort depends on assistance. Checks in any amount to this fund should be made out to Fr. Gordon MacRae and mailed as follows:

Friends of Fr. Gordon MacRae

P. 0. Box 863

Hampton, NH 03842-0863

e-mail: TheseStoneWalls2@gmail.com

TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS: The National Center for Reason & Justice (www.ncrj.org) has fully examined the case of Fr. Gordon MacRae. Its Board of Directors and wrongful conviction specialists voted unanimously to provide fiscal sponsorship of his ongoing legal defense. What this means is that this fine organization lends its name to this appeal for funds, and will accept tax deductible contributions earmarked for legal expenses in this appeal if they meet the criteria.

Please consult www.ncrj.org/donate/ for instructions on how to make a tax deductible donation earmarked for the Fr. Gordon MacRae case. If you wish to donate to the NCRJ, please indicate in the “memo” line on your check that you wish to apply the funds to the Fr. Gordon MacRae case. If you also wish to apply for a tax deduction, you should indicate so in a cover letter. That address is:

THE PAYPAL LINK available on the front page of These Stone Walls is active, and it provides an opportunity for online gifts in any amount. If you take advantage of the Pay Pal link, please include an e-mail instructing us on whether you prefer your gift to be used for legal expenses or the support of These Stone Walls.

A SUPPORT FUND is also established to accept assistance in support of These Stone Walls and the special circumstances in which Father MacRae must write and publish. This includes costs for domain and hosting fees, postage and typing supplies, and daily telephone costs from prison to edit and manage These Stone Walls and hear and respond to messages. Remember that as a prisoner, Father MacRae has no Internet access so all messages must be read to him by telephone. Checks to this support fund should be made out to Fr. Gordon MacRae and mailed as follows:

Fr. Gordon MacRae

P.O. Box 205,

Wilmington, MA. 01887-0205

Email: gjmacrae@gmail.com

If you are unable to help with any of the above, you can still help enormously by posting links to These Stone Walls on other blogs, social networks, and to your own contacts. This is most important. And you can also pray, without doubt the most powerful intervention available to us. Let us hope together for justice.

About Fr. Gordon J. MacRae

The late Cardinal Avery Dulles and The Rev. Richard John Neuhaus encouraged Father MacRae to write. Cardinal Dulles wrote in 2005: “Someday your story and that of your fellow sufferers will come to light and will be instrumental in a reform. Your writing, which is clear, eloquent, and spiritually sound will be a monument to your trials.” READ MORE

Comments

I am posting this in my facebook account right now and will send in my share. Father G, this may sound disheartening to some but pure joy to others: could it be that your suffering is earmarked to keep the moral balance precariously in the world today, particularly in the Church? After reading through Ryan’s and the others’ posts, I had this feeling that yours is a share in the suffering of CHRiST: innocent, pure, and holy.

Asking for your priestly blessings for me and my family, especially for my son who is away at the university,
Domingo

I read a quote the other day: “The institutional church wounds the healers.”
Romano Guardini wrote: “The church is the cross on which Christ is crucified.”
The weak and sinful personnel of the church have always marred the face of the Bride of Christ, but never have they so flagrantly denied the Faith as in modern times and in cases such as Father Gordon’s. In our days Jesus has once again been brought before Pilate, and the leaders of the institution of the church have screamed, “Give us Barabbas!”
From the example of the leaders of the church, unbelievers are justified in their rejection of God and the church. God could not possibly be as He is represented by the leaders of the church. And God is not. And the leaders of the church have tied a millstone around their own necks and only await their final plunge into perdition. The church represented by these leaders is coming to an end. Pope Francis, God willing, will purge the church of the cancers on Her body and allow Her to shine as the radiant Bridfe of Christ. Holiness will return to priests. Bishops will once again become teachers, leaders…. and martyrs.
And, God willing, those who have suffered at the hands of the church ….Father Gordon and his brothers… will be returned and restored to the fullness of priestly life. God hurry that day.

A few weeks after his election I wrote a letter to Pope Francis summarizing your case, Fr. Gordon. I wish I had had your excellent post available to me then, Ryan, yet I do know someone at the Vatican got the message, which was for them to do something about this injustice. The answer I received was a letter signed by a major Vatican official thanking me for congratulating the Pope on his election as well as an Easter postcard. No reference to the core of my communication.

Almost a month ago now I sent another letter which has not received an answer yet. I can also say that so far my suggestion of displaying on the Vatican web page a link to “the Abuse of the Abuse Crisis” has not been taken into account.

Immense injustices happen all over, both against priests / religious persons as well as against lay people. I say this while grieving deeply that consecrated people have been and are being targeted against based on lies, greed and ideological biases. I know the dignity of you priests is higher than ours as lay people. But when I realize that someone like Pablo Ibar ( http://www.pabloibar.com ) in Florida and Aasiya Noreen Bibi in Pakistan are both on death row because of other huge injustices like yours, Father Gordon, I cannot but think that evil reigns and attacks God’s children regardless of the status of the victim (see Revelation, chapter 20).

Last Sunday, October the 13th , 522 people assassinated in the barbaric religious persecution of the 1930s in Spain were solemnly beatified in Tarragona, Spain with Cardinal Angelo Amato presiding. One of those victims, the then Auxiliary Bishop of Tarragona Manuel Borrás, was shot, and while still alive, burned to death, this being just one of the many crimes of this kind. This group joined about 1,000 more who had been previously beatified by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Although the total documented number of persons murdered then because of hatred against Christianity is over 7,000 , the actual number is said to have been possibly more than 10,000.

It appears that you, Father Gordon MacRae, Pablo Ibar, Aasiya Noreen Bibi and the Martyrs of the Religious Persecution in Spain, plus so many others just about in all four corners of the globe, are casualties of a larger scale war. True, incompetence and malice may explain part of it. However “Our battle is not against human forces but against . . . the rulers of this world of darkness, the evil spirits in regions above” (Eph 6: 12). In Ephesians 6: 10-17 there is more on Christian warfare “to be able to stand firm against the tactics of the devil”.

Surrender is not an option!!!

Let us all share in the effort to restore Justice through praying (including the perpetrators of the injusticies), spreading the word, donating and whatever else we may be inspired to do. God bless you Father Gordon, Ryan MacDonald and everybody else out there. Juan.

This is what I posted on the FB page of the “Vatican Insider” . I’ll probably be blocked from there tomorrow..I don’t care!!..I refuse to stop until Pope Francis hears this!! “Not until Fr. Gordon MacRae is walking, FREE, in the streets, will the Bishops of the USA be viewed as Sincere Men of God!! The way they have allowed & HELPED to keep this INNOCENT Priest in Prison for 19 yrs is an OBSCENITY!! How can the USCCB hold their CEO Conferences & be seen as anything but that, CEO’s!! God help Fr. Gordon!! He has brought thousands to Christ by his Devotion to a Church whose Leaders through him away!! To keep their own secrets!! Fr. Gordon is living Proof that God Can & Does bring good out of Evil!! But ENOUGH!! Pope Francis Needs to hear about this atrocity!! He scolded an avaricious German Bishop…. What about Bishops who Lie by their Silence, & their refusal to intervene!! Most of the Bishops are like me, OLD! How can they shave in the morning?? We’re a sneeze away from standing before Jesus as our Judge!! There are thousands of us now, aware of this man’s fate! He has teams of lawyers & “The Wall Street Journal” has had his story verified & printed in their paper. WHY are the Bishops SILENT!! Woe, Woe, & Woe…”What you have done to the least of these, you have done to me”!!!”

Dear Father MacRae (& friends),
May God, in His infinite mercy, bring forth abundant justice for you.
May His perfect healing and true peace reign in each and every soul involved in this case.
May we courageously continue to praise God in all things and unite our prayers and sacrifices as members of the one Body of Christ.

Your Scotland Yard type move, to investigate the crime
scene, is an eye-opener.

As a matter of act, it is most troubling to have to conclude
that some of our judges totally ignore compelling facts, in
favor of the accused, opting blindly for their own bias (all
priests are predators; Fr. Gordon is apriest; thus… giving
credence to an accuser, with a most questionable story.

Let’s pray, not only for our priests falsely accused, but also
for judges with ingrained pre-conceived judgements.

Hi Fr. G.
Am going to get a Twitter account & bring this straight to Pope Francis, on his account…I just posted this on the USCCB FB page..It may take a whole hour to take it down.. I got blocked last Spring for constantly posting TSW on their FB page…I consider that an Honor!!
God bless–

The response to this post in just a day since its posting has been very encouraging. As I write this, nearly 100 people have posted this on their FB pages and other social media. This is exactly what is needed to spread word of this story, but I want to add a post script to this post that I will likely be writing about on my own blog, A Ram in the Thicket.

When Fr Gordon MacRae was on trial in 1994, and the prosecution finished presenting its case, which consisted of nothing more than Thomas Grover’s hysteria and evasiveness, Judge Arthur Brennan instructed Fr MacRae not to take the stand in his own defense or else the judge would open the door for Thomas Grover’s brothers to testify to their own false claims brought in civil suits. Fr MacRae was the only person never heard from in this trial.

When Judge Arthur Brennan sentenced Fr MacRae to more than 30x what had been offered in a plea deal, the judge never permitted Fr MacRae to speak. Now, today, both New Hampshire courts receiving this appeal have dismissed it without Fr MacRae being allowed to utter a word. Even in the Diocese of Manchester, the Bishop presented Fr MacRae’s case for dismissal to the Holy See without Fr MacRae even knowing what was put forward or having any opportunity to defend himself. This forced silence has been deeply unjust and this case must move forward and be fully heard. What are they all afraid of?